The labour reform approved in Argentina under the presidency of Javier Milei has been narrated in Europe almost exclusively as an ideological provocation. This is a superficial reading. In reality we are facing a serious political and economic experiment, which deserves attention from those who believe in the Western liberal tradition.

After decades of stagnation, out-of-control inflation, crippling corporatism and a labour market dominated by informality, Argentina needed to break an unsustainable equilibrium. The new regulations on contracts, hours, compensation and union conflict should be read in this context: not as an attack on workers, but as an attempt to restore dynamism to a system that no longer produced regular work or growth.

An elementary truth, which we tend to forget in Europe: without a growing economy there is no sustainable social protection.

The knot of informal work

Argentina has one of the highest rates of undeclared work in the western world. This means no contributions, no rights, no social mobility. A hyper-rigid labour market, full of constraints and costs, ends up protecting those already in and condemning those left out.

Milei’s reform tries to reverse this logic. Reducing recruitment and litigation costs, simplifying contractual relations, clarifying the limits of union action in essential services: these are classic instruments of liberal economic policy. Not an ideological revolution, but an attempt to make the labour market more similar to that of growing advanced economies.

One can discuss each individual measure, sure. But the principle is correct.

The courage that Europe lacks

The most striking point is the political courage. Milei was elected promising radical reforms and he is doing them, bearing the political cost. In Europe, on the other hand, the season of structural reforms seems to be over. They prefer minimal interventions, full of exceptions and compromises, which do not change the underlying incentives.

The result is there for all to see: anaemic growth, stagnating productivity, young people looking for opportunities elsewhere. And a public debt that continues to rise as we try to compensate with public spending what we cannot create with growth.

European liberalism was born with the idea of fiscal responsibility, economic freedom and social mobility. Today, it often defends the status quo.

Flexibility does not mean precariousness

One of the most common misunderstandings is to confuse flexibility with precariousness. But real precarity arises when an economic system does not create enough work. When growth is zero, every job becomes a rent to be defended.

The world’s most dynamic economies combine contractual flexibility with effective social protection. Not generalised rigidity. It is a lesson that the liberal tradition has long known, from Hayek to Friedman to the reforms of the 1990s in the Nordic countries.

Milei’s Argentina is trying to move in this direction, starting from much worse conditions.

A lesson for the old continent

Not everything that happens in Buenos Aires is replicable in Rome, Paris or Berlin. Institutions matter, national histories matter. But the principle does.

We need fewer barriers to enterprise, less bureaucracy, less corporatism

We need labour markets that incentivise hiring andinvestment, not rent. We need governments willing to explain that growth does not come by decree. In Europe we have built just and civilised societies. But we risk no longer knowing how to sustain them economically.

Looking with interest at Milei’s reforms does not mean adopting slogans or imitating models. It means remembering that liberalism is not just a cultural tradition, but a concrete policy. Which requires difficult, often unpopular, but necessary decisions.

Argentina chose to try

Europe should at least have the courage to discuss it seriously.